This book reveals how the Aga Khan Development Network and its Historic Cities Programme transformed an area of Cairo’s urban blight into a dynamic public space.

Once a city of verdant gardens and parks, Cairo in the 1980s was severely overcrowded, economically struggling, and many of its inhabitants lived in unsanitary conditions. Historic Cairo, a World Heritage Site centered on the original Fatimid settlement of Cairo, has presented a challenge to conservationists and urban planners over the years as they have sought to protect the city’s heritage while it remains a living city. Understanding how the process of decline could be reversed by restoring monuments and building a new park, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) set about revitalizing the Darb al Ahmar area and creating Al Azhar Park. This book features numerous scholarly contributors and authors who participated in the program, and shows how the conservation effort paid off in countless ways.